This doesn't surprise me......

[patgund]

Through the question still stands on is it due to better testing proceedures, or something else?

Autism more common in U.S. than thought: survey

"Autism is more common in the United States than anyone had estimated, affecting about one in every 150 children, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday.

CDC estimated that about 560,000 people up to age 21 in the United States have autism.

"Autism is more common than we believed and is an urgent public health concern," said Catherine Rice of the CDC's birth defects division, who helped lead the study."

Comments

[aeddie.livejournal.com]

I looked at the article you posted and the one on CNN.com and they had the same numbers and the same problems.

1. Did not mention total number of kids studies.
2. Only parts of 14 states, some of which didn't give full access to data, like Alabama.
3. Did not give a comparison as to criteria used to flag kids as positive.

This survey flagged 'autism spectrum disorder' that includes Aspbergers and other disorders, did the others? What would happen if the data the older surveys were based on were scanned with the same criteria? Autistic kids might be flagged more accurately by the school districts no that they can get special ed funding for it instead of just calling autistic kids retarded or mentally disabled.


I'm not saying autism isn't serious, it is. I'm not saying that it isn't increasing, it might be. But after the vaccine link fiasco I'm a bit leery.